Out of whack my time-crunching mechanism went,
Some gear slipped, some notch went slack.
An unspoken simultaneity suddenly needed to be
Talked about loudly. That tacit crack in the
Unified field manifest inside my stark dawning.
It put an unstaffed face on my face. A lark
In one blast, two owls bathing in a birdbath next.
Wild justice minus its aftermath. Misericordia
And what I knew to be in my heart’s best beat
Unhitched. Sense & sound unflocked, kicked
Back into the epiphanaceous zones. Floribunda
Of somewhere else. Here and now and this and
Then and that rustled and a timespoon bent.
Several layers of the wallpaper peeled away.
A bruise unfurled around my neck and then fled
To be near its open secret. Marvelous to relate
The tonic balm a dog’s bark can effect. What
Transpired when I was untranced kept consequence
In a non-binding treaty with assignment of cause.
I had been allowed to name several racehorses.
I had been vaccinated with Venetian blinds.
An antimacassar had been attached.
I had been bathed in anticipation block.
It didn’t work.
My epicritical matter had been slightly adjusted.
My epiphora had been diagnosed & dismissed.
My dear old grandmother, the one with the third
Eye who refused to cut or comb her hair, read me
Her version of “The Princess & the Pea.”
It might have been simpler to have turned me into
A Japanese beetle or a champagne flute, an arrowhead
Or a pair of dark glasses.
A kind look in my beloved’s eyes augured me in
From the back of beyond in some such way.
Very little clean air and potable water there,
In the past, I meant to say.